SPRINGFIELD – A House panel last week advanced a bill aimed at reforming a state pension plan known as the “Tier 2” system, but only with the understanding that negotiations will continue and no final action will be taken until next spring at the earliest.

“We've been at this for a couple of years,” Pat Devaney, secretary-treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO, said during an interview after the committee vote. “Over 50% of our members statewide that are in the pension plans are Tier 2. They are realizing what an insufficient deal that is in terms of retirement security and demanding that changes are made.”

Devaney is also a leader of a coalition of labor unions that have been pushing for changes to the Tier 2 system called We Are One Illinois .

Lawmakers passed the Tier 2 system in 2010,

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